It's hard to believe that October will arrive in just eleven days, because the month after that is November, election time! In this country our presidential elections, including primaries, go on for so long, it can seem endless.
But now the end is growing near. Which means it's time for supporters of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to look at polls and election prediction models with increased fear and hope. That's what I've been doing from my vantage point of a strong Harris backer.
The good news from my perspective is that Harris has a narrow electoral college lead in the three models that I follow: Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin (I'm a paid subscriber), ABC News' FiveThirtyEight, and The Economist. The bad news is that her lead is tenuous, being dependent on outcomes in several battleground states that are only narrowly in her polling favor at the moment.
(Note: it's a bit confusing but FiveThirtyEight has nothing to do with Nate Silver anymore, aside from using the name of his model that became famous in the 2016 presidential election; Silver retained the rights to his model when he was let go by the New York Times so his Silver Bulletin is based on the old FiveThirtyEight.)
Currently the Silver Bulletin has Harris and Trump essentially tied in the Electoral College win probability. With 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, Harris is predicted to get 277.
The worrisome thing for Harris backers like me is that Silver has her winning the Blue Wall states -- Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania -- by narrow margins: Michigan 1.4%, Wisconsin 0.7%, Pennsylvania 0.4%. He also has Harris winning Nevada by 0.3%. However, he has Harris losing North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona by less than 2% in each state, so those other battleground states could easily end up being in her win column (just as the Blue Wall states could end up in her loss column).
FiveThirtyEight is slightly more bullish on Harris. This model has her winning 290 electoral college votes, though I couldn't figure out exactly which states produce that total. FiveThirtyEight has Harris narrowly winning Nevada along with the Blue Wall states, with Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina all shown as 50-50 probabilities for Harris and Trump at the moment.
The Economist also has Harris with about a 60% chance of winning. Her electoral college total of 277 is the same as Nate Silver's: the Blue Wall states plus Nevada, with Harris being slightly behind Trump in Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia.
I may be looking at the situation too optimistically, since I want Harris to win, but I see more reasons to be optimistic than pessimistic about her chances improving from now until election day.
Enthusiasm seems greater among Harris supporters. Trump appears unable, unwilling, or both to reach out to swing voters in any meaningful way. The Republican candidate for Governor in North Carolina, Mark Robinson, is imploding under the weight of CNN's investigative reporting of his "I'm a Black Nazi" comments on a porn site, which could hurt Trump's chances in the state given his strong backing of Robinson. Harris has Oprah Winfrey and Taylor Swift on her side, a formidable duo. Tim Walz probably will win his debate with J.D. Vance just as Harris won her debate with Trump.
Still, anything can happen before election day. If the future could be predicted with certainty, it wouldn't be the future. We Harris supporters have to act as if she's well behind Trump at this point, which she indeed could be, notwithstanding what the polls and election models say. Reality always is different from our understanding of it.
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